Having chit shuffled in the vicinity of Maleme Airfield numerous times, the idea of lead slinging and grenade tossing amongst the olive groves and sun-baked terraces is seriously appealing. Assuming locomotion is as pleasing as it looks to be, and the devs resist the urge to anthropomorphise their hirsute gymnasts, all should be well. Inspired by real threats to the gibbon – deforestation, palm oil production, and poaching – the game’s narrative almost writes itself. While I’m a tad disappointed by Broken Rules’ eleventh-hour change of theme (in the alpha demo of Gibbon: Beyond the Trees you played an 18th Century English historian who, for a bet, attempts to traverse the county of Hampshire without touching the ground) this winsome “hand-drawn adventure” (ETA Feb 25) is sure to end up installed on the THC toe-warmer before Winter is over. Those stories are then dehydrated, alphabetised and delivered, via articles like this one, to people who’ve got better things to do than plough through puff and platitudes. Once a month, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a day or two scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories with the potential to fascinate, startle, cheer, dismay or amuse. A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news.